/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14313360]

Do you guys keep a journal?

[Anonymous No.14313381]

>>14313360
Yes, I also write with my left hand and backwards, just as my papi did.

[Anonymous No.14314037]

>>14313360
I used to back in my early-to-mid-twenties, but I realized that most of my entries were trite, maudlin nonsense. And I never took my own advice, so I eventually stopped altogether.

In hindsight, I kind of wish I had kept it up, but it doesn't bother me that I didn't.

[Anonymous No.14314145]

>>14314037
>And I never took my own advice, so I eventually stopped altogether.
Really makes you think.

[Anonymous No.14314161]

I used to, then one day I read it over and it was awful. Realizing that I could die unexpectedly on any day of the week and lose all control over who saw it, I knew it had to burn.

[Anonymous No.14314732]

>>14314161
It'd make for an interesting insight into who you were as a person after your death though.

[Anonymous No.14314782]

I don't have anything to write about except for work and the latest movie I've watched or book I've read desu

[Anonymous No.14314801]

>>14314037
>maudlin
It's a good thing you stopped.

[Anonymous No.14314822]

>>14313360
I keep one about my experiences with prostitutes and hentai consumption

[Anonymous No.14314823]

>>14313360
I did. I vowed not to read it for a year. When the year was up, after I finished reading, I wanted to kill myself for the first time in my life.

[Anonymous No.14314843]

>>14314823
Why?

[Anonymous No.14314876]

>>14314843
The best I can explain it is if a hamster was picked up and saw the labyrinth it was in from above.
The patterns...the patterns.

[Anonymous No.14314889]

No. I don't want someone to find it and use it to get me red flagged or some bullshit.

[Anonymous No.14314905]

>>14313360
Yeah, but I'm very inconsistent with it. I only really open it up when an occasion of significant sadness occurs or I'm mulling over regrets and need to put it to paper.

[Anonymous No.14314984]

>>14314876
But you're supposed to learn from those patterns, anon. You saw them and are now acutely aware that they exist. Now you can work on a way to correct your course

[Anonymous No.14315000]

>>14314984
That is very true, my friend. But my initial reaction was one of despair. You know that blinding moment of painful clarity?
I took the appropriate steps since then, and used it as an odd sort of manual.
It helped that I was very clinical about it, daily entries with as much detachment as I could, almost writing it in 3d person.

[Anonymous No.14315049]

>>14314984
>>14315000
What patterns are you guys talking about and how do you correct them?

[Anonymous No.14315085]

>>14315049
if you have not seen the ZLRG then you must earn it.

Praise be to Him who descends.

[Anonymous No.14315193]

Of course. I write story ideas, essay outlines, diary entries, really anything. I think everyone should keep one. Whether it be digital or physical.

[Anonymous No.14316801]

I do, but nothing interesting happens in my life so I mostly write down my thoughts on whatever I read/movie I watched and the people I pass on street on my way to uni. I think it makes me more observant or makes my memory better because at the start I would write down ~3 people and now i average 20 and with more detail.

[Anonymous No.14317914]

>>14313360
Yeah, and I update my journal somewhat frequently.

[Anonymous No.14318059]

>>14313360
> Pic related
> Left is journal/planner/notes
> Right is specifically dream journal

I call the left one my “second brain”; it stores and sorts out things I can’t keep up with otherwise. It’s where I jot down and store everything I need held together, and it’s where I sort of... stat the progress of my life. The orange one is legit just for dreams, because I dream almost every night.

[Anonymous No.14318063]

>>14313360
I used to. I haven't made any notes in mine for over a year though. I wrote several and gave them to random people.

[Anonymous No.14318095]

>>14313360
Yes and it's full of autistic nonsense.

[Anonymous No.14318102]

>>14313360
>>14318059

And to clarify I don’t write down my thoughts in a traditional journalistic way. It’s not a diary. It’s like a book of stats. Relevant quotes, notes from meetings, pages to remember sorted by subject (a page on this, a page on that). Lists of books I’ve completed, lists of books to get. Weekly planners, notes on future appointments, brainstorming, outlining... this kind of stuff.

[Anonymous No.14318147]

>a people read your diary
what would they think of you?
In my case - this guy keeps going on and on about the same thing.

[Anonymous No.14318154]

>>14318147
If they read my dream diary they’d think I was a colossal sexually repressed faggot

> They’d be right

[Anonymous No.14318174]

>>14318154
just act on your desires, no one cares about homosexuality.

[Anonymous No.14318243]

>>14318174
I say faggot not in the homosexual sense. I got messed up when I was a kid and now I’m into really rough shit and forced stuff. It doesn’t mix well with society. I’m married too and my wife’s great but we don’t get to fuck too often due to our home situation. I just wish I could nail the shit out of her in a very objectifying way more. So in my dreams I’m like violently skullfucking co-workers or assfucking the work thot in front of her loser boyfriend. Not socially acceptable.

[Anonymous No.14318273]

>>14318063
Nigga u wot?

[Anonymous No.14318380]

>>14315085
What is this ZLGR

[Anonymous No.14318386]

>>14318059

>>14318102

Base.

I have a journal filled with languages and grammar notes . I try to understand the meta of everything , so I usually have meta analysis on human nature . It is written in my secret language

[Anonymous No.14318424]

>>14318386
Is the secret language just yellow ching chong speak or is it coded because I am interested in writing my more spicy dreams in code

[Anonymous No.14318528]

>>14318424
It is simplify English grammar and kanji, each letter contain a corresponding English counterpart, everything is spelled like how it is sound . I can write easily but struggle to reading it .

[Anonymous No.14318837]

>>14318528
This is based. When did you start this?

[Anonymous No.14319024]

8-10 pages a day without fail.

[Anonymous No.14319217]

Has anyone tried those smart notebooks? I have a plain ol' journal, but thinking of adding a smart one into my writing routine.

[Anonymous No.14319381]

>>14318837
a year a go .
i made the alphabet , while i was in class . and modify the grammar as time goes on .

[Anonymous No.14319429]

I keep a journal of what i read, my life kinda sucks so i don't think i want to keep a real journal

[Anonymous No.14319963]

>>14319217
Why? What does it do for you? Serious question.

[Anonymous No.14320053]

>>14313360
Yep. I journal my dreams, food intake, and spiritual practice.

[Anonymous No.14320183]

>>14313360
I haven't wrote in mine since 2018

[Anonymous No.14320219]

>>14319381
I've made my own alphabet too but it sucks.
So you're quite literally writing a word as you hear it? Like, "Even" = "Iveune" or "Study" = "Steudi" ? You're a genius.

[Anonymous No.14320234]

>>14313360
dear diary,
today OP wad a faggot

[Anonymous No.14320237]

>>14313360
yes. ive been doing so for a couple years now. there i put things like how i was feeling and brainstormed story ideas.
i actually just finished looking back on an older journal entry and it's kinda put me in a sad mood. cant help but feel like im trading parts of myself... but this is what i asked for so... prayers heard i guess. And to be honest it's better off this way.

[Anonymous No.14320287]

>>14320237
>cant help but feel like im trading parts of myself
huh?

[Anonymous No.14320300]

>>14319024
how the fuck do you write so much? honest question

[Anonymous No.14320363]

>>14320300
answer >>14319024
or you are larping

[Anonymous No.14320364]

I got into writing in a notebook that was lying around in my apartment, it kept me sane during an excruciating lonely period. It probably reads like insane ramblings though. It sits unfinished with a few pages empty.

Moved on to Samsung Notes, which turned out to be a mistake since those aren't very portable. Moved on to Markdown notes in Joplin but never got used to the interface... The habit died at that point

Be careful about messing with routines lads.

[Anonymous No.14320386]

>>14318528
لقد فشفت عن اسرارك يا عمي

[Anonymous No.14320410]

>>14314889
>not developing your own cipher to write your diary entries
you can at least use the excuse "it's fragments from a novel I'm writing"

[Anonymous No.14320422]

>>14320386
>لقد فشفت عن اسرارك يا عمي
اسكت يا غبي!
من فضلك أبق الأمر سراً.

[Anonymous No.14320438]

>>14320287
hobbies, passions, traits, certain feelings lost all together. picking things up which i normally hate... like im slowly becoming just a vehicle for my goals or something... if that makes sense.

[Anonymous No.14320440]

>>14320300
i always wrote a lot online, chatting and stuff, one day i realized really how much effort i was putting into it, and watching my thoughts dissolve into archives that will never be seen or pried into, and i decided i would rather have it in diaries in my drawer. it's not difficult for me to ream out fifteen or more on days when i feel inspired by something. otherwise, i just have the propensity to ramble on for hours about whatever crosses my mind. some pages are utter dreck, but occasionally something nice comes out of me, so i keep at it. it's become a compulsion now.

[Anonymous No.14320465]

yup, every single entry is just me chronicling my lonely failure of a life. sometimes i read entries from several years ago and it amazes me that no matter how much things change nothing is permanent and i always end up in the same place, just older

[Anonymous No.14320496]

>>14320364
well jung's redbook is sorta insane ramblings, you just haven't done the things that put it into context.

[Anonymous No.14320497]

>>14320422
طالما تسائلت كم شخصا هنا له اضلاع على الثقافات الاخرى

[Anonymous No.14320532]

>>14320438
Bro are u me I’m the guy with a black and orange notebook pictured above

[Anonymous No.14320537]

>>14320440
Does your hand cramp? Since youth I cannot make it through a page or two without a massive hand cramp.

[Anonymous No.14320556]

>>14320532
lol maybe in some ways

[Anonymous No.14320572]

>>14320532
>>14320556
might have to adopt that second brain idea. seems more effective then just dropping something in my phone notes just to not open it again.

[Anonymous No.14320589]

>>14320537
not really. did hurt my finger until i built a nice little callus there. then i got into this whole utensils thing, sucked into the world of pens. i wish i had a desk though, i think i could get a lot more done with a sort of battle station. i have been considering selling my laptop and vidya devices to buy books, paper, pens and a desk. went through some strange metamorphosis that i won't go into.

[Anonymous No.14320647]

>>14320497
join

https://discord.gg/NVD8Z34

[Anonymous No.14320649]

>>14320589
I used to have a desk and it’s as useful a tool as you describe, as long as you don’t let a computer be the focal point. I like the super fine tip sharpie pens.

>>14320572
It has made me much more consistent and self aware, to say nothing about the gigantic increase in productivity.

>>14320556
The second brain thing has helped me recognize my own growth, to be fair. It helps with accountability, keeping myself consistent.

[Anonymous No.14320671]

>>14320219
You realise that's how everyone wrote until standard education and 'correct' spelling?

[Anonymous No.14320680]

>>14313360
I used to. now i just keep a sketchbook

[Anonymous No.14320816]

>>14313360
I've kept a journal for 14 years. I write almost every day. It scares me so much that I can't recall a single full day of high school, or even any given day of last year. What did I have for breakfast? Vanished into the ether. I try my best to evoke the feeling of the day, supplemented by physical details.

I read the journal back sometimes for these details but it also makes me sad when I read it so I don't do that much. Just keep going. One day when I'm 40 I'll be able to know what happened every day at age 26.

[Anonymous No.14320825]

>>14318102
Can you post a pic of a page in your journal? Love seeing how different people does this stuff.

[Anonymous No.14320887]

>>14320825
Left page is weekly planner, followed by the school week.

Underneath that are notes from a meeting with my professor for senior project.

The entire right hand page is an brainstorm in which I revised and re-outlined said senior project. It kinda flows from left to right to bottom, with sections quarantined off. The squiggle marked “Anne 12/8” is a day in which my wife scribbled in my notebook while I was writing for shits and giggles. It was cute.

[Anonymous No.14320898]

>>14320887
God dammit why is it fucking upside down? Fuck

[Anonymous No.14321007]

>>14320898
cause you are a phone fag

[Anonymous No.14321051]

>>14313360
This is making me want to read through my old journals. Digits determine which page I turn to and post.

[Anonymous No.14321063]

>>14313360
I have a penzu account and every time I read it I cringe then have a existential crisis.

[Anonymous No.14321099]

>>14321051
The 51st sheet in my 2006-2016 journal. (Writing is too small to photograph, so I'll transcribe).
"I hate feminism and its followers. I don't hate it because I don't believe it, because it doesn't appeal to me, because it's an attempt to change an unwanted situation for some, or because it is trying to achieve the unachievable. Those are all true, but don't inspire the hatred that has grown within me. The reason I hate feminism is because it is manipulative, excessive, close-minded, and power hungry. The followers do not want to bring the bar of the scale to horizontal, rather, to thrust it back the other way, so their cause and members are in control (complete control) through small, individual acts of rudeness, violence, and incompetence. Every commercial (or show for that matter) that depicts a heterosexual couple must also include moments when the beer-drinking, sports-watching husband acts stupid or without any judgment, to which the wife replies with a smug, condescending joke about her mate's idiocy. Look for it, it's everywhere - rarely is the brilliant, level-headed woman wrong. From stand-up comedy to radio and TV commercials to sitcoms - it never misses.
1/2
>>14321063
Here, enjoy some vicarious embarrassment.

[Anonymous No.14321102]

>>14320887
Thanks anon.
I like the method of having the day/week plan on the right side and random thoughts and ideas on the left.

[Anonymous No.14321114]

>>14321099
2/2
"This annoys the hell out of me since, with a few novel exceptions, the foundations of all knowledge, art, politics, civilization, and communication were established and advanced by men. The world's most brilliant scientists were all men (Newton, Kepler, Einstein), as were the best writers (Shakespeare, Alighieri, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Joyce, etc.), leaders (Lincoln, Caesar, Bonaparte, FDR, Trudeau), and entertainers (Nicholson, Peck, Olivier, Sinatra, Hope DeNiro, Pacino), and musicians (Young, Dylan, Lennon, Cobain, Moon, John, and Petty), and of course, athletes. So feminists shouldn't act like women have done everything important, because they haven't. I should also note that the women who join feminist groups usually do so b/c of their disappointment of how little they've achieved, and subsequently bring shame and embarrassment to all the good mothers and successful women who chose not to complain about what society has suggested they couldn't do, and instead have just proved it wrong with charm and grace, gaining respect and admiration along the way."
-2 October 2007

[Anonymous No.14321157]

>>14321102
Usually that space below the weekly planner is sufficient to capture misc. shit; here’s a spread of two weeks side by side in which each week’s random notes are contained beneath the respective week’s routine.

I don’t force myself to hold to a system; if I need a whole page to do a project, like I did with this capstone paper’s post-meeting revision (30 page paper), I just do it.

[Anonymous No.14321274]

>>14321114
> Trudeau

Ah, I see this is a bait post. Nice.

[Anonymous No.14321287]

>>14313360
I started one and would journal something like once every other week. Haven't done an entry since April now, but I've been eyeing it up these past few days and plan on writing sometime this week.

[Anonymous No.14321488]

>>14321287
What do you write?

[Anonymous No.14321524]

>>14321063
Why online? Seriously. Are you just not honest or am I alone in deviancy and unacceptability of thought?

[Anonymous No.14321565]

>>14321274
The journal is from 2007, before Justin was in politics. It refers to his father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Even though he was hated in the west and was controversial as PM, he was widely accepted as an astute politician.

My embarrassing journal entry is 100% real.

[Anonymous No.14321594]

>>14321565
Another reason I doubted it, aside from my ignorance and the fact that this is an Alaskan snowman-crafting forum, is how well written it is. It’s ahead of its time, or it is to me as I would have been around 15 at the time. I had just discovered tiddies and didn’t give a fuck about feminism if my peepee got tickled.

It’s a little neckbeardy but not incorrect. The fedorah is only in the expression of the thing; it’s like someone who loves Anime but manages to be a not-weeb, or a gay man not being a faggot, a black guy a nigger, and so on.

[Anonymous No.14321609]

>>14313360
Yes, but usually only at times in my life and critical junctures or when I am feeling strongly about an event or experience I deem interesting enough to write about.

>journaled when I was locked in a psychiatric hospital
>journaled when I was going though malpractice-induced withdrawal and fighting for my life
>journaled when I lived out of a frame pack and spent my time hiking through the Southwest deserts
>journaled during my teaching expeditions as an outdoor educator
>journaled when I went back to the destshoot ethnographic documentaries

It’s great looking back at things you wrote years beforehand and seeing how your thinking has transformed. It’s like visiting and conversing with a mind that is no longer your own. Often I wonder what it would be like to stand in a room with myself, a decade younger. What would I tell him? Would I laugh? Give warnings about the future? Would I tell him to relax and trust the process? I don’t know. The journal is the closest thing I have. All I can do is reflect, and learn from everything I’ve done so far.

[Anonymous No.14321655]

>>14321524
I'm worried someone might go through my shit.

[Anonymous No.14321656]

>>14321594
haha, that's a surprisingly sharp observation. I was, at the time, an obviously insecure virgin. I had not yet lost my faith, but was on the verge. And I thought it was stoical to not date.